Baseball 90: Johnny Mize

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Johnny Mize is the sort of baseball player who doesn't exist anymore -- who perhaps CANNOT exist anymore -- and it drives many baseball fans crazy. Even fans who have never heard of the Big Cat, who don't know a single thing about him, miss him terribly. In 1947, Johnny...

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12 thoughts on “Baseball 90: Johnny Mize”

“Wow, do we ever long for someone like Johnny Mize in 2018. Since 2005 — just after Barry Bonds broke the game — nine players have hit 50 home runs. ”

All true, however, I would note that in 2006 a player came closer than anyone else in history to the standard you set forth (hitting 50 or more HRs with fewer HRs than Ks), so I am unsure that your underlying premise holds up For the record, that is Albert Pujols, with 49 Hrs and 50 Ks.

reading this article a serious question came to mind: I was a college pitcher in the mid-90’s with a fastball that averaged between 82-84 mph, a change around 75 mph, and a curve around 78 mph all with decent control. My question is if there’s any point in modern baseball history(post 1900) where I would have had a shot at pitching in the big leagues? My best guess would be maybe pre-WWII although I don’t really base this on anything than the natural evolution of athletes (and maybe a little pride)

This year’s HR/SO champ is Jose Ramirez, with 39 HR and 80 SO. Willie Mays hit more HR with fewer SO than Ramirez five times. Hank Aaron did it six times. Barry Bonds also did it six times. And Albert Pujols did it seven times.

I’m sure Joe is well aware of all that I’m about to write, and did not mention it out of a concern for the length of the piece, as it is an article about Johnny Mize, not Vern Ruhle. Ruhle’s 1980 season is memorable partly for the reasons that Joe summarizes: he was a very effective starter for a playoff team, despite being a junkballer who pitched to contact.

But it is also memorable for whom he replaced in the rotation. Ruhle only became a full-time starter for the 1980 Astros following a devastating injury to J.R. Richard, only a couple weeks after J.R. had started the All-Star Game. J.R. Richard registered 313 strikeouts in 1979, the highest total of the decade for any pitcher not named Nolan Ryan. Ruhle was his opposite in every way.

As a further aside, may I humbly nominate J.R. Richard as a candidate for the Shadowball list? I’m sure Joe has them planned out well in advance, but both for his highs and for his lows, J.R. deserves to be commemorated. J.R.’s playing career never recovered from the stroke he suffered at age 30. In a lot of ways, he is similar to Herb Score or Sandy Koufax, but his second act was very different.

Famously, in Houston lore, J.R. later became homeless and was living under a freeway overpass south of downtown. To this day, I find it hard to imagine a 6-foot-8 giant, utterly broken and destitute, moving almost invisibly through the heart of a city where he had been a great hero only a few years before, serving mostly as an object for unthinking contempt, if he was even noticed at all. It came as a great shock to Astros fans to hear of J.R.’s plight when it finally made the news, though he was in front of our eyes the entire time.

For what it’s worth, I made a mid-career change about ten years ago to help start a legal aid agency for homeless folks in Houston, and I still work there regularly. Though we never used it in any of our pitches for fund-raising, the example of J.R. Richard was always in the back of my mind. It always seemed possible that the next person we helped might be someone like J.R.

When the Astros finally won the World Series last year, a lot of thoughts flew through my mind at once. First among them, though, was the image of J.R. under the bridge.